Does the body have rights?

[cristaphin]

In many different ways, I hear "The body is nothing. It is just a vessel. Take no thought to your body.  It's only dust/clay anyway. You don't die, don't even think about the body. etc."

Which is all fine and good when one considers that we are eternal.

HOWEVER,

I read "journey of souls" recently and one of the things is that when the spiritual essence combines with the body, it:
1] Combines with the body. Hence, there must be something to combine it to.
2] At the core, the brainstem wants to survive. That is it's function. Even in a coma, when there's "noone home" the body will breath, heartbeat, all those little things to exist.

So in part, from the bodies point of view, "Someday, I will die and cease to exist" is an accurate statement.
Hence the 'religion of fear' fear of loss.

What can we as eternal beings do to make it easier on our poor vessels?

Sometimes, I don't express myself as I would like to be able to. Does this make sense?

I welcome ALL philosophies and opinions. Perhaps we can come up with a common thread.

[scarecrow]

cristaphin,

I have a very simple view on this: You can liken your body to a car that is carrying you on a journey. Just because you are not going to need it once you reach your destination that is no reason not to take the best care of it that you can whilst it is in your possession.

Albeit a temporary one, it is still a precious gift and should be treated as such.  

[cristaphin]

I most definately agree.  There is not the slightest reason to treat it badly.

I think what i'm looking for is... um...  would/does the body have a rudimentry consciousness all it's own?

For example, one belief system indicates that the body is coarse matter and is at this level of vibration; So, we as a higher vibration need to 'purify'/'refine' it by bringing its vibration up.

If these intellegences only vibrate at a lower frequency, would it not make it a number of entities with a 'group soul' awareness with a unified purpose?

"rights" might have been hastily or ill spoken. Altho' if it has a consciousness of its own have we not just jumped in and subverted its own 'freewill'? (as such)  

Even the terminology that I just applied.  "Its"  althogh I know perfectly well that over all, "it" is a "she".  But then again, if it's a bunch of various entities applying themselves as a group, who knows if 'she's' sexless.

If this looks like it's going around and around, now you know what's whirling in my head. That's why I brought it here.  Obviously, either i'm missing something, or haven't thought of it from a peculiar angle.

Thank you scarecrow for your reply.  I look forward to an expansion (if you so desire to give it) and I hope this clarifies more of what i'm thinking about.

Happiness and peace to you  

[beavis]

Sprit and brain are connected so much they're like the 2 sides of a brain. If one side dies, a brain stores lots of redundant info, so most of that info is still in a similar form in the other side. The info is still there. The atoms still exist. What was lost?

[scarecrow]

I haven't read Journey of Souls so I can't really comment on what it contains and I apologize if I go "off-thread" here but I don't see the physical body as its own entity at all.

I have read and believe (at this moment anyway    ) that each of our incarnations comes from some sort of reservoir or ocean of "soul-matter" and can be likened to filling a cup from that ocean, when we die we then return to this "ocean". The physical body is simply a temporary vessel that "wasn't" before our incarnation and "is no longer" after our death.

When you say "...there must be something to combine it to" I agree but does this have to be a conscious something? Without the spirit a body is just a body.

[cristaphin]

In a beautiful example of "ask, and you receive an answer", I was reading "The power of Compassion" by the Dalai Lama.

In it, he touches upon tantric buddisim (I didn't know those to went together. I'm never as smart as I think I am. )

Anyway, he speaks of a most subtle level of consciousness known as a 'Clear light state'.  I can read more about this in the 'Guhyasamaja Tantra'.

I won't presume to say what I've gleened as I did a spot peruse, but it seems it will at least give me a bit of terminology to, at least, articulate myself when asking for answers.

Thank you so much for giving me input.  Good questions, good advice.

Bliss.

[scarecrow]

I'm currently reading A Guide to the Buddhist Path by Sangharakshita.

Hopefully it will provide me with some terminology to articulate myself when responding  

[ARCHDRAGON]

compassion: deep awareness of the suffering of another coupled with the wish to relieve it.

[ARCHDRAGON]

and don't think about any of this just feel it, or else it will drive you insane trust me

[Tom]

One of the things I keep hearing is that people who receive transplanted organs will sometimes get unusual food cravings or they will act out unfamiliar habits. These come from the person who had had those organs previously. It also sounds to me like this would be a partial explanation of why sometimes transplant organs are rejected by the new body.

[You]

People have rights.. our body is US, my body is mine, if I choose to lay aside some rights, then my body must succumb to that. I have every right to pierce, tattoo, cut, bruise, break, scrape, lash, burn, or freeze any part of myself.

Of course I think the human body shouldn't be messed with for the most part, so I don't, but anyone else is welcome to, even if it can be incredibly disgusting a lot of the time.

[beavis]

Tom

One of the things I keep hearing is that people who receive transplanted organs will sometimes get unusual food cravings or they will act out unfamiliar habits. These come from the person who had had those organs previously.

That might be some true, but most of it is probably caused by needing molecules to build something to adjust to the new organ.

[patapouf]

You remind me of a funny anecdote Tom. There was a person who was trying to sue the hospital because the heart transplantation that he received got him a depression that he did not have before!!

[Telos]

I was a long distance track runner in high school. For our practices, we would run up to 10 miles straight. If there's anyone else here who has trained for a marathon, they know even more about what I'm going to talk about.

The body does not "want" to run 10 miles. It may want to get up and be active, but when you push it for a few miles, it hurts and hurts and hurts, begging you to stop. Yelling loudly. "Stop! You're hurting us! You'll be sorry if we keep going!!"

But then you say, "no, body, I know what you can do, we're going this extra mile."

And it whines and whines like, "noooo! I want to go home and eat cookies!"

And you're like, "no you don't. you don't know any better. you have rudimentary impulses, but you're not smart. you need me."

And because you're smart, you won't push your body so hard that you damage it. But you most certainly will not constantly leave it to its own devices. For its sake. For yours.